Played Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines videogame, Got it off Steam... Options

[Wounded Ronin]

As much fun as it is to make fun of White Wolf, I recently got Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines off of Steam, which makes me glad because the last time I tried to buy it used off amazon.com the CD was very expensive.

It's actually a really, really good RPG. There's lots of quests, a well done game world in terms of atmosphere, lots of skills, and a rich enough story backround to really support a decent CRPG. The atmosphere really reminded me of the SNES Shadowrun game. I am completely impressed that they implemented all of the vampire clans, Masquerade violations, and all that kind of stuff, and at the same time made all the quests and storylines work at the same time for, say, the Nosferatu as well as all those other guys who have the actual ability to be social. That's a lot of work, right there, and a lot of gameplay approaches they had to implement. Although I only played White Wolf once or twice in my whole life, from what I recall it seems like they largely avoided dumbing down or simplyfing the RPG rules, and I really have to give credit to any computer game designers who remain true to their source in that way.

I've only just started the game, which Steam should have automatically patched to 1.2, but we'll have to see if I hit any of the infamous game-destroying bugs that apparently ruined the commercial success of this game back when it was released.

I'll play it through once normally, maybe once again as a Malkavian just for the hell of it, and then I'll have to see about all those unofficial patches I've read about on gamefaqs.com

I think it's pretty hilarious that most of the vampires look all chic and artsy. Goddamn, if I were a vampire who was 100 years old, I think I'd have better things to do than go through the trouble to look like an affluent clubbing 20-something.

The whole, "you're tempted and threatened by your hunger for blood and the beast within while striving to hold onto your humanity" sounds like some big allegory to me for some kind of narcissistic personality disorder. With a narcissistic personality disorder you have trouble empathizing with other people although you still have some kind of conscience (because you're not a sociopath) and although you normally give into your own insecurity and fear such that you victimize or use others (drain their blood or ghoul them) you still sometimes feel bad about that and secretly hate yourself (that's your humanity score right there). The fact that lots of the vampires go through the trouble to dress up chic and artsy and/or wear Burberry suits and be very polite seems to symbolize the great lengths a narcissistic individual will go through to maintain a pretense of the ordered or respectable nature of their own life in spite of the fact they're usually experiencing a lot of fear or insecurity about not in fact being a perfect person. I think it's kind of funny because it just sounds like whomever came up with the concept of the game has had some experience with that particular psychological disorder and basically made a game about it. I guess all the vampires would turn out OK if they just took some psychotherapy. Heh, either that or they can just sit around listening to Linkin Park at a bowling alley during the daytime before heading out at night to play their games.

It's also funny because if I were a vampire like depicted in the game I wouldn't feel that I had the time for all those elaborate patty-cake games and pretenses and playing petty politics with other vampires. IMO the big problem with life is that it's too short, whereas there are all sorts of awesome things out there to do such that you probably can't do all of them. There's all kinds of experiences you can have and skills and disciplines you can develop, but again you don't have unlimited energy or time. Add to that the fact that as a normal human you need income, food, etc. and a lot of your time and energy is going to go towards accruing those necessities, and that the end can come very unexpectedly, like you go to the hospital and get a huge medical bill that explodes all the planning and stability in your life. So, if I were a vampire who were immune to the negative health effects of being homeless, who didn't need to buy food, who was pretty much unkillable, and whose only major restriction was needing to avoid sunlight (I don't consider the blood drinking to be a major restriction compared ot being a human...needing to eat the flesh dead animals is pretty similar to needing to drink the blood out of dead animals), I'd aggressively spend all my time pursuing hobbies and interests while not wasting time on things that are no longer necessary. It would also be possible to participate aggressively in physically risky endeavors that would be stupid if you were a human. Kind of like min-maxing my unlife.

All of a sudden it would be realistic to set out to read every book in the Library of Congress, for example, or spend 100 years refining your skill with firearms. If you wanted to learn about wilderness and nature you could just up and walk up the Sierra Nevada for a year, since you wouldn't be able to die of hypothermia. You could just hang out in the woods for as long as you wanted eating rats and bears with a few books on nature and study all about it on site. Wanna go and do archeological studies in a politically unstable region of the world? Go ahead, if some AK wielding tough guys come and bother you at night you can just eat them all and hide the bodies. Wanna visit all the great museums in the world? Go ahead, break in by night when nobody is there using your superpowers and enjoy the exhibits all to yourself. Wanna learn to paint or play the guitar? Well you finally have all the time to practice without being impeded by being poor. Wanna race stock cars? Well all of a sudden now it's safe, even if you suck at driving.

If vampires are going to get all depressed over these kinds of opportunities, well, hell, they're clearly all suffering from a personality disorder. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[hyzmarca]

One thing I found annoying about Bloodlines is the fact that normal humans can take multiple headshots without even noticing. I understand that it was meant to be accurate to the P&P rules, but humans should die when you make giant holes in their skulls by shooting them in the face multiple times. At the very least, they should be inconvienced.


Another thing I found funny is that despite the fact that both guns and Toreadors are fairly useless early on, once you've gotten a Steyr AUG your artsy-fartsy vampire can be the most deadly combat monster in the game. Because temporary bonuses aren't capped, Auspex can be used to give a character 13 in ranged combat (14 if he has a certain item that's only available in certain patches) Combine that with Celerity for super speed and the AUG's decent damage and superb full-auto accuracy and you're essentialy a vampire chainsaw that will cut through the most powerful boses with ease.

[Wounded Ronin]

One thing I found annoying about Bloodlines is the fact that normal humans can take multiple headshots without even noticing. I understand that it was meant to be accurate to the P&P rules, but humans should die when you make giant holes in their skulls by shooting them in the face multiple times. At the very least, they should be inconvienced.


Another thing I found funny is that despite the fact that both guns and Toreadors are fairly useless early on, once you've gotten a Steyr AUG your artsy-fartsy vampire can be the most deadly combat monster in the game. Because temporary bonuses aren't capped, Auspex can be used to give a character 13 in ranged combat (14 if he has a certain item that's only available in certain patches) Combine that with Celerity for super speed and the AUG's decent damage and superb full-auto accuracy and you're essentialy a vampire chainsaw that will cut through the most powerful boses with ease.

Did you notice how the .38 Special cartridges are all hollow points? I thought it was hilarious that a gangbanger can take multiple JHPs to the head and be okay, but I honestly didn't mind because I understood that the game was being true to White Wolf, and that White Wolf was never intended to be realistic tactical combat.

I'm taking the time to aim for headshots, but I'm not 100% sure if the game is awarding me extra damage for headshots.